Hospitalist/programmer in search of the meaning of life

Foreign Transaction Fees

Feb 13th, 2006

Now that credit card companies are charging extra fees for foreign
transactions, you need to know where online companies are physically
located. For example, did you know that
Abebooks, an online aggregator of bookstores,
is based in Canada? We found out when we bought books from them and
found our credit card statement littered with foreign transaction
fees. The ironic thing is that the book actually shipped from the
U.S. (from Amazon.com, in fact). Of course, there’s not much Abebooks
can do about this, but you need to calculate the extra costs into the
transaction to see whether you’re still getting a good deal.

Comments from old site

Amazon.com charges credit cards directly

Hi Vinod. I work in the online book industry. If you bought the book
from the Amazon.com website, they charge credit cards directly,
rather than passing it along to Marketplace/zShops booksellers. The
charges couldn’t have been generated by Abebooks, because they never
got your credit card information.

Is it possible that (1) you bought the book directly from Abebooks,
rather than Amazon.com, (2) you bought the book from a non-US
Amazon.com site (e.g. Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk), or (3) that the
foreign transaction fees are for something altogether different?

Unregistered Visitor2006-02-14 16:52:21

Yes, I bought directly from Abebooks

Sorry if I wasn’t clear about that. I didn’t buy from Amazon.com. As I
said in the post, I bought online on the Abebooks.com website. The
book just happened to come “packaged” in an Amazon cardboard box.

Vinod Kurup2006-02-14 17:18:24

Abe CC

This will be more and more of an issue as Abebooks moves to process
the credit card transactions for all of their booksellers.

You can be an American buyer purchasing from an American seller and
still pay the 2-3% surcharge solely because ABE is in Canada.